C.U.R.E CONTINUOUS URBAN REGENERATIVE ECOSYSTEM A REGENERATIVE TOOL
ISD 5106 SUSTAINABILITY MODELS AND BLUEPRINTS Aditi Gupta | Zhang Wei | Heather Banerd | Song Yifan
CONTENTS 1. Assessment Tools 2. Gaps 3. Introduction to the Tool 4. Ecosystem Services 5. Provisioning Services 6. Supporting Services 7. Cultural Services 8. Regulating Services 9. Case study - Green School Bali 10. Green School assessment Tool 11. Community Engagement 12. Conclusion 13. References
ASSESSMENT TOOLS ‘Worldwide Building Assestment Process’
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Since BREEAM was developed in 1990, green building rating tools drew people's attention increasingly (Haapio, 2008; Gomes da Silva, 2007). Furthermore, the standardization of building environmental assessment has been published (Haapio, 2007). The main standardizations are the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers and the International Organization for Standardization. Environmental assessment tools are categorized into five classes (IEA, 2001): 1. Energy modeling software 2. Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools for buildings and building stock 3. Environmental assessment frameworks and rating systems, 4. Environmental guidelines or checklists for design and management of buildings 5. Environmental product declarations, catalogues, reference information, certification and labels. LCA tools, are the quantitative assessment tools, using a physical life cycle method with quantitative input and output in the processes (Forsberg and von Malmborg, 2004; Cole, 1999). The starting point of this report is the qualitative assessment tools which results in an overall score for building performance (Forsberg and von Malmborg, 2004). The tools – BREEAM and LEED are selected and described because most of subsequent tools are based on these two.
GAPS The assessment tools provided worldwide rate just the built-up , structure and indoor air quality of the buildings . Such tools have various gaps that do not bridge the evaluation process on the ecological level. Ecology forms an integral part of our world and hence it becomes important to evaluate every aspect of our built environment around it. Its the evalution of how an external element functions when we input it into the natural world through human intervention. 1. Occupant Experience : The assestment tools take into consideration the community or user evaluation once at the pre-occupancy level or post occupancy. This gives a false impression of the functioning of the building or a project throughout its life cycle. A need for continuous user-evaluation process can fill this gap. 2. Resilient or Adaptability of the climatic conditions : Most often the tools examine a building on the particular site but not with its potentiality to sustain the changing climatic conditions. This makes the building not adaptive or resilient for ever evolving surroundings. 3. Connectivity : The disconnect of the various layers of ecosystem - site, building, people and nature are not evaluated from the various tools. The tools evaluate each layer individually and not as a holistic approach. 4. Values and Ethics : The assestment tools are devoid of the values and ethics in the process of evaluation. The tools are more technology driven than people driven, hence forming a void between people and built environtment. 5. Cultural heritage within the community: The tools show a disconnect when it comes to cultural heritage or services provided within the city’s or site’s context. The projects dont take into consideration the site potential and the synergies it lies within. 6. Restrictive and Hollow Metric system : The evalution is restricted with a checklist format, hence making it dificult to include any site specific details or changing environments.
In order to make it easier for people to understand and use, the tools are now mostly divided into separate parts. The table above shows the detailed categories and versions of BREEAM and LEED. These parts focus on the perspective of engineers, seeking the building performance. Although these tools may be used at national and global level (Haapio, 2008), but their range of assessments and impacts, do not reach such large scope. In addition, the rating tools are mostly used toward the end of the design phase. The tools tests the building’s energy potential rather than its actual performance, which forms the problems in the operation of the building and neglect in design. Therefore, sustainability should be dealt with at the initial assessing stage to influence the building positively. Since the human activities have significantly led to the environmental crisis, as well as the harm of building itself to human beings (long-term living in indoor air-conditioning space and far from nature), the factor of human should be taken into account in the creation of the new tools. Based on the above aspects, the tools need to accept the new agenda focusing on both sustainability of broader scope and human level. In the author's opinion, we cannot solve the problem based on the existing tools. On the contrary, the new conceptual breakthrough and innovation should be carried out from the beginning, which drives the authors to create the new 5-level assessment tool.
A MINDSET SHIFT CURRENT VISION : From a technology based approach which focusses on technical opportunities in order “to do less harm” eg. Using low e glass on the facade to reduce heat gain and energy consumptions. A mindset shift is needed to a more holistic approach of not doing “ any harm” and work towards giving backto nature and creating a positive impact. FUTURE VISION : An approach that is focussed on adaptive opportunities to create new potentials and make a regenarative design that sustains what we have, restores what can be lost and revives or regenerates something new by combining the living systems and socio-economic factors with the latest technology.
Technology Technology
SocioEconomic
Living Systems
The Tool is divided into Five levels/Boundaries - Human, Site,Neighbourhood,Region and world. Each level has two intermediate levels which is obtained by the magnitude or impact it creates on the ecosytem. The potentiality of the system is assesed rather than the actual service that measures the relative magnitude each ecosystem service has along with its functions within all four quadrants. WORLD (4 - 5) This level corresponds to the strongest relationship within all five levels and thus have the stongest impact/magnitude .It takes into account the ecosystem services, functions and human well -being improving and reviatlising the planet. This could range from 4 - 4.5 - 5 depending on the impact. REGION (3 - 4) At this level ,the project should be engaged in impacting a region through neighbouhood,site and human level. It should create a strong direct relationship with all four levels.This could range from 3 - 3.5 - 4 depending on the impact. NEIGHBOURHOOD (2 - 3) The project can impact the neighbourhood level only after the human and site level ‘s magnitude is completed. It should involve community and ecosystem services not just at human and site level but also neighbouhood level to spread awareness and influence the different nature functions. This should range from 2 2.5 - 3 depending on the impact. SITE (1 - 2) The project can impact the site level only after the human level is complete. It should involve community at human level and ecosystem services at the site level to revive the natural system.This could range from 1 - 1.5 - 2 depending on the impact. HUMAN (0 - 1) The system or service needs to fulfill the human level by provision of basic ecosystem services to its inhabitants and considering their well being before making an imapct on a wider level. This could range from 0 - 0.5 - 1 depending on the impact.
Ecosystem Services are life sustaining processes and conditions. They maintain biological processes (biodiversity ) and production of various goods such as natural fiber, timber, seafood ,industrial products, biomass and the protects the species to sustain and fulfill human life. The approach to ecosystem services is a strategy to manage land,water and natural resources that promote its conservation and sustainable use. These services can maintain an equilibirum or a balance in nature of convention : sustainable use, conservation and fair sharing of the benefits obtained by utilization of natural resources. These services are divided into 4 groups- Regulating services, Supporting services, Culutural services and provisional services that act as the drivers of change and provide the benefits of public health and wellbeing to the to sustain life.
BIODIVERSTIY The habitats with an exceptionally large number of species are more genetically diverse than others, which forms a situation called biodiversity hotspots. Assessment: According to biodiversity assessment guidelines of Victoria government, a range of biodiversity information tools is required to measure the biodiversity. The tool in this paper need have the aid of Native Species Information Management System to get the survey data and calculate the species’ variability. The project will reach human level when the benign variability of biodiversity happens close to human. If the benign variability spreads to part of the site, it will get 1.5 points. Only when all the site is influenced, the point becomes 2. The level of neighborhood, region and world are as above.
HABITAT Habitats provide everything to survive. Every ecosystem gives different kinds of habitats including savannah, farm, wild, forest, tropical rainforest, wetlands, oceans. Assessment: What extent of range could the habitats in the project attract the species from? If people artificially introduce species into project during or after project construction, the project reaches the human level (1 point). After project construction, the species will be counted and recorded. If the project only naturally appears its own species within the site, it will reach the standard of site (2 points). If species exchange occasionally and naturally appears between the site and neighbourhood, it will get 2.5 points. If the neighborhood’s species have naturally survived and will be breed offspring in the project for a long time, it will reach the neighborhood level (3 points).
OXYGEN PRODUCTION Assessment: Several plants should be harvested to replicate measurements. Here the amount of CO2 absorption is used to determine O2 production. The method of measurement is to use Infra-Red Gas Analyzer-IRGA (Uptake of CO2) which can compare the CO2 concentration in gas passing into a chamber surrounding a leaf/plant and the CO2 leaving the chamber. If the CO2 absorption (photosynthesis) happen indoors and close to human, 1 point will be achieved. If vertical green designed on the building façade or the garden in site which have good capacity of CO2 absorption, 2 points and if the photosynthesis is not prosperous in the site, it only gets 1.5.
SUPPORTING SERVICES
BIOMASS PRODUCTION Assessment: The biomass production can be calculated using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The NDVI is calculated on a monthly basis. The NDVI is directly related to the photosynthetic capacity and hence energy absorption of plant canopies (Sellers, 1985; Myneni, et.al, 1995). According the concept of net-positive development, here the tool defines the criterion that NDVI must be more than 0. If average NDVI is more than 0 in the site, it will get 2 points. The level of neighborhood, region and world are as above. If the human can stimulate to produce the food or other thing belongs to the category of biomass statistics in other services’ assessment, it will get 1 point.
NUTRIENT CYCLING Nutrient cycling (also called ecological recycling) refers to the movement, storage, maintenance and exchange of nutrients by organic and inorganic matter. Nutrient cycling services invisibly influence all other ecosystem services because all living things need a continuous supply of nutrients to survive. Assessment: The main contents of the soil can be tested to determine whether nutritional cycling is good or not.If the conditions are met, then soil habitats (ecological corridor) connectivity can be assessed. If soil habitats indoors and close to human, or the assessments in other service show that soil can support them to grow the plants or crops, the score reach 1 point. If soil habitats connect to each other in the neighborhood, it will get 2 points.
WATER CYCLING Water cycling (also called hydrological cycle or H2O cycle) refers to the constant movement of water around our planet. Assessment: 1. Precipitation measurements (e.g. A rain gauge measures liquid and solid precipitation) 2. Measuring Streamflow (e.g. Water depth sensors measure the height of water) 3. Measuring soil moisture (e.g. A series of soil moisture sensors buried underground to understand water uptake by tree roots) 4. Measuring evapotranspiration (e.g. Sap flow) The water cycle of project should be measured every 3 years in order to determine how much fresh water is stored. The numerical variations will be the index of water cycling evaluation. If the assessment of other services (such as water in the provisioning services, water regulation and purification in the regulating services) meet the human level, this part in the supporting services will also reach the same level of human (1 point). Besides, the numerical variations will be calculated in the level of site, neighborhood, region and world. If in each level water content is not reduced, such level will be reached.
Supporting services are the services that are essential for the production of provisioning, regulating, and cultural services in ecosystem (MA, 2005; de Groot, et.al, 2002). They are different from other services because they have indirect influences on human beings or evolution which last over a very long time. Many functions can be defined as not only supporting services but also influence the other three services,if their differences of spatial and temporal scales overlap. Supporting services mainly include services such as habitat, biodiversity, biomass production, atmosphere oxygen production, nutrient cycling and water cycling..
PROVISIONING SERVICES
WATER Water is the most essential element to life on Earth. Fresh water is a renewable resource, yet the world's supply of groundwater is steadily decreasing, with depletion occurring most prominently in Asia. In terms of sustainability, we measure how projects reuse water, like storm water harvesting, grey water recycling, etc. to supply for the building, neighborhood scale, or larger region.
FOOD Food is needed by the human body for energy, to repair and build cells and to prevent sickness and heal from it. The right to food is a human right derived from the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), recognizing the "right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food", as well as the "fundamental right to be free from hunger". In terms of sustainability, we measure how many food the project could supply for people. The quantity of food meets the need of site, neighborhoodscale, or larger region.
COMMUNITY FARM If there is one class of design element that embodies all three of these values—resilience + sustainability + livability—it is a community farm. Farms contribute to a city’s resilience to storms by capturing water that otherwise might contribute to flooding and overloaded sewer systems. They produce food that otherwise would be imported from elsewhere. They are typically places of beauty where people gather and strengthen a community’s sense of identify and cohesion. We measure that community farm participants are from the site, neighborhood scale, or larger region.
There is no doubt that we need to reduce the usage of resources and energy, but decrease will not be enough because use less still means consumption. we could construct buildings with LEED platinum rating, almost ninety percent sustainable in the next one hundred years. It’s not sustainable because use this way to build our homes cannot be done indefinitely. Therefore, our regenerative tool regard supply as an important evaluation basis. We measure how much the project can contribute to the earth and the living system, how much the project can enhance the sense of happiness for human being in this part. By doing this to improve sustainability, livability and resilience for our living environment, and regeneration could then finally be achieved.
ENERGY As energy is the main ‘fuel’ for social and economic development, and since energy-related activities have significant environmental impacts, it is important for projects to use renewable energy. In terms of sustainability, we measure how much renewable energy could be generated from renewable resources, which are naturally replenished on a human timescale, such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, waves, and geothermal heat by the project and how large area it could supply for.
MATERIALS Environmentally friendly building materials have developed as a response to the knowledge that construction has often had a negative impact on our environment and used a large amount of natural resource. This category encompasses materials that are recycled, sustainably harvested, or organically grown, like bamboo, timber, reclaimed rubber, etc. In terms of sustainability, we measure in what extent materials used by projects come from nature and could return to nature after use.
ORNAMENT Ornament, a decorative element in architecture and the decorative arts, has aesthetically valuable functions by promoting more enjoyable living conditions. In terms of sustainability, we measure who can enjoy the the beauty of the project and to what extent. The project could attract eople from the site, neighborhood scale, or larger region, even all over the world.
SAFETY Safety is the state of being "safe", the condition of being protected from harm or other non-desirable outcomes. Safety is an indispensable condition for sustainable development. We measure the capacity of the reduction of natural disasters like flooding and how much range can benefit from the project.
CULTURAL SERVICES
Cultural services in the traditional ecosystem services model encompass the ‘non-material benefits people obtain from ecosystems’ (UKNEA) and cover a wide range of topics such as spiritual enrichment, tourism, recreation and cultural heritage. In CURE, these are expanded on to include parameters evaluating how well the project engages the community, and the measures it takes to give back to society. This is based on the theory that projects require not only the participation of the entire community and stakeholders, but depend on these people having a vested interest in the project’s success. This is the most qualitative section of the assessment tool, and stakeholder responses will be very subjective. However, it is appropriate that they are subjective answers, as the project must address the needs and values of its community and stakeholders.
SCIENCE
N ATIO C U ED
RECREATION A healthy built environment should support a healthy, active lifestyle. Projects that enable this will take initiatives at the site level such as providing facilities such as bike racks and showers for employees who bike to work. Beyond the project site, integration with cycling networks or activity corridors and provision of space or support for community recreation such as sports leagues or exercise classes are ways in which the project can have a positive impact at the neighbourhood level in this category.
This criteria assesses the value that a project provides to a community beyond its primary function. Important benchmarks in this category include whether the project supports local businesses and industry, creates local jobs, and gives back to society through means such as donating excess product to the disadvantaged or struggling - whether they be members of the project’s immediate community, or across political borders.
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A critical element of progress is learning from each other - whether this means educating the next generation, sharing knowledge and experience amongst peers, or simply recording and analysing data from our own projects. This category evaluates how the project contributes to our shared knowledge. At the site level, this includes ensuring all users are aware of the strategies and processes used in the building, and continuously monitoring and collecting data of all quantifiable aspects of this tool. At the neighbourhood or regional level this may mean partnering with educational institutions to analyse this data and develop strategies to address any new situations that arise. At the world level this includes making all data used in this evaluation tool freely available online.
SOCIAL INPUT
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SCIENCE & EDUCATION
This criteria evaluates how a project engages with the community at all stages. The baseline to meet this requirement is ensuring that all users can easily participate in using this tool to evaluate the project, however successful social engagement goes far beyond this. For public and institutional projects, benchmarks include promoting connections between different groups in society; ensuring the project is inclusive of people from marginalised groups; and functioning in a transparent manner.
ACCESSIBILITY Ensuring that a project is accessible to all users regardless of ability is most important for public and semi-public projects, including offices and retail buildings. However, this category can also be applied to private housing at the human and site level, particularly for larger housing projects where accessibility and universal design throughout the grounds, common areas and access routes is critical.
IDENTITY Studies have shown positive correlations between a feeling of ownership or ‘stewardship’ over a space and positive, caring behaviour within that space. Communities or users that feel their space is a reflection of themselves will care for it, maintain and protect it from damage and degradation. Thus, projects should seek to reflect their context - the values and aspirations of the users and the greater community.
HERITAGE While heritage is often associated solely with the historical built environment, ecological heritage is evaluated equally within this criteria. While this may be interpreted differently in each projects’ unique context, this does not only encompass preserving historical artefacts or ecosystems. In cases of brown field sites or monocultures, this may mean restoring biodiversity and systems. The key distinction between this category and other ecosystem services is the recognition of the human-centric nature of this heritage. In cases where cultural heritage has been lost through destruction of architecture or cultural oppression, projects that work to revive or restore aspects of this heritage, or translate it into a modern context should achieve positive ratings.
MENTAL HEALTH In societies that are increasingly disconnected from nature, with increasing social and economic pressures, there is a growing awareness of the prevalence of mental health issues. Projects that actively seek to promote mental health awareness as well as practices to manage or combat mental illnesses are fulfilling the criteria for this category. This includes passive strategies such as the provision of quiet spaces for mediation and reflection, preventative strategies such as workshops to reduce stress or promote healthy practices and self-care, or active strategies such as outreach and counselling programs.
CARBON SEQUESTRATION A terrestrial process in which carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is taken up by plants and trees through photosynthesis and stores carbon in soil and biomass. By soil, water and air regulation, carbon sink to the envronment is limited by preventing deforestation,fossil fuel emissions and forest fires. Planting more tress and forests at the site level can sequester more carbon and enhance other ecosystem services like improving water quality and soil nutrients leading to climate regulation on a world wide level.
EROSION REGULATION Productive soils are well aggregated with minerals,air ,water and has high diversity and biomass of microbes. They mainatain the infrastructure by providing a platform for vegetable growth and regulating the suppy to ecosystem services. In conuction, Soil also provideS better water and air quality to the environment. Porductive soils helps regulate the nitrogen cycle and carbon sequestration within the soils by regulating the nutrient cycle. Human intervnetion form time tot ime can disrupt the natural equilibrium and affect soill conditions. Extensive care must be taken while introducing any external elenement to improve soil conditions. Thi is also culuturally driven by the community to manage the ecosystem service more effectively in a given timeframe for the future generations.
REGULATING SERVICES
CLIMATE REGULATION The ecosystem services influence the climate at all the levels. It is the influence of land cover and biological mediated processes at the site/neighbourhood level that affects the temperature and rainfall. At the regional or world level atmospheric processes and weather patterns can create the microclimate in which different plants and animals (including humans) live and function.This also contributes to the carbon sequestration and greenhouse gases by removing pollutants and better air quality.
POLLINATION Pollination is a critical process for the production of plants and food for consumption by animals and humans.The genetic diversity is maintained in the seeds by out crossing with other plants/fruits which benefits plants itself.This makes the ecosystem resilient and contributes to its functions by providing continuous benefits like food production (fruits, vegetation and seeds) through insects and wind to us humans.Climate regulation is an important ecosystem function to the provision of this service. Climate change affects the habitats and the micro-climate that supoorts the biodiversity of a region.(species composition,interactions and competition for resources). Climate change also impacts the range of pollinator species that bring about a change in flowering times, flower or nectar abundance,loss of tree cover and natural breeding sites .Water regulation is important for abiotic pollination of plant species.
WATER REGULATION & PURIFICATION Water regulation is influenced by vegetation,topography, soils, hydrological movement of water through atmosphere,aquifers, rivers, lakes and wetlands. Natural ecosystems play a crucial role in the hydrological cycle by affecting transpiration and evaporation and influencing the channeling and storage of water in a catchment.Forests and wetland ecosystems within catchments help regulate flows, preventing floods and maintaining water levels during dry and wet seasons.Purification of water through wetlands avoids constuction of water treatment plant. This results in aquatic life to thrive and benefit the community with opportunities of food and income.
DISEASE & PEST REGULATION NATURAL HAZARDS Ecosystem services regulates the disturbance in nature caused by human activities . The provisioning services like soil , vegetation buffers negative impact of water and wind. The soil stores water and reduces runoff whereas vegetation providessurface retention and prevents drought in different temporal conditions. Wetlands /Mangrooves prevent floods and coral reefs prevent shoreline damage. This has adverse effect on the ecosystem impacting the cultural and provisioning services thus,resulting in the phenomena of climate change.
Climate and water regulation have significant impact on abundance of species, their compostion and their distribution range in the ecosystem of species interactions. The variability in climate results in the complexity of the ecosystem which leads to diversity in biological processes of the region. The ecology of mosquitoes in a tropical season can be disturbed by unseasonal river flows or continuous irrigation of crops hence disrupting the climatic control of species population. Pests and diseases control the ever evolving plants, animals and people though the activities of predators and parasites. Such services are also influnced by the community interation that maintains the soil and water on site or regional level.
Many basic services are provided to us by the ecosystems that make life possible for humans. The services like clean air and filtered water by plants, decomposed waste though bacteria, pollinated flowers by bees and entact soil by tree roots to prevent erosion. These processes come together to provide a clean, sustainable, functional and resilient ecosystem A regulating service is the benefit obtained by the processes of ecosystem that moderate natural phenomena. The benefits obtained from the regulation of ecosystem processes such as climate regulation, natural hazard regulation, water purification and waste management, pollination or pest control.
CASE STUDY
LOCATION: BADUNG, MENGWI, INDONESIA
The Green School, Bali
AREA: 7542 SQM PROJECT YEAR: 2007
The Green School is a giant laboratory built by PT Bambu. It is located on a sustainable campus straddling both sides of the Ayung River in Sibang Kaja, Bali, within a lush jungle with antive plants and trees growing alongside organic gardens. The campus is powered by a number of alternative energy sources, inclusing a bamboo sawdust hot water and cooking system, a hydro-powered vortex generator and solar panels. Campus buildings include classrooms, a gym, assembly spaces, faculty housing, offices, cafe and bathrooms. A range of architecturally significant spaces from large multi-storey communal gathering places to much smaller classrooms are a feature of the campus. Local bamboo, grown using sustainable methods, is used in innovative and experimental ways that demonstrate its architectural possibilities. The result is a holistic green community with a strong education mandat that seeks to inspire students to be more curious, more engaged and more pasionate about the environment and the planet.
A SCHOOL BEYOND THE BOUNDARIES OF THE BAMBOO CAMPUS
118 solar PV panels 21
supply kWh to The Green School’s renewable energy portfolio create a closed loop system from the food forest and the gardens, to the kitchen, out to the composting pile and the greywater management system, back to the lunch plates and finally back to the composting toilet for yet another cycle.
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supply kW of renewable energy to the overall Green School portfolio biomass, kitchen waste and cow manure is collected and composed to create an organic material that is used as a nutrient rich fertiliser for the permaculture gardens dispersed trough the school ground that supply the kitchen.
meet the site’s drinking water consumption needs the integration of aquaculture and hydroponics that grow fish and plants together in one closed system.
Bio Bus is a social enterprise, initiated by Green School students, that strives to provide sustainable transport services to the Green School students and community members. The decrease in passenger car trips resulted in carbon emission reductions, as well as the ecological benefits of recyling cooking oil and using the biofuel as a fuel alternative. As well, a byproduct of the cooking oil recycling process is glycerine which can be further provcessed into sustainable soap products. The use of bio soap reduces the use of monoculture palm oil based products that have checmical additives which pollute fresh water sources, not to mention the massive ecological impact of palm oil plantation related deforestation.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT A key component of the CURE assessment tool is continuous monitoring and feedback of the project. This will be done through the CURE online database, which can be accessed via web browser, but will also be available as a mobile phone application. All projects involved will be required to register on the database. For the more quantitative criteria such as renewable energy generation, biomass production, resident or owners (of private housing) or building management (of housing complexes, commercial or institutional projects) are responsible for collecting and collating data and inputting it into the central CURE database. The designated project manager will receive specialised training in the assessment tool and function of the database, as well as being responsible for organising. For the more qualitative criteria, such as mental health support and social engagement, private projects such as residential buildings can choose to set a login requirement to limit the number of people who can give feedback on their project. However, the default will be to set each project as open access, for anyone to submit feedback on the qualitative criteria, and all collected data will be openly available. Projects are also required to conduct monthly formal feedback sessions for stakeholders who are less comfortable with technology or who wish to present suggestions or address pressing issues. Through continuous monitoring of data, direct stakeholders are kept aware of any small changes and should be able to identify and troubleshoot issues that may arise, and through continuously high levels of community engagement, the tool aims to increase the community’s vested interest in the project and promote a mentality of shared stewardship.
RESIDENTIAL PROJECTS Stakeholders: Methods:
Residential projects will typically have very few stakeholders. A private home will primarily impact the residents, and the properties immediately adjacent. Depending on the area it may also include all neighbours on the street, or the neighbourhood association. As the primary stakeholders live in close proximity and can interact with relative ease, feedback methods may be most informal for this project type, comprising of frequent feedback on a minor scale, both online and face-to-face. Where the number of stakeholders increases, such as in an apartment complex or housing development, more formal feedback sessions become important methods of engagement. Condominiums or apartment complexes may also wish to utilise digital methods such as online forums as a supplementary feedback method, where residents can raise concerns and brainstorm solutions.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
COMMERCIAL PROJECTS Stakeholders: Methods:
Commercial projects have a wide variety of stakeholders, for example an office building will include the tenants, staff, and building management, however retail outlets and complexes such as shopping malls will also include the customers in their stakeholders. Methods for engaging stakeholders in an office building can generally follow the methods used in a residential apartment complex, with monthly meetings, online feedback via the database, general data collection by building management, and online discussion forums. The inclusion of customers of retail outlets will create a heavy reliance on on-the-spot feedback and digital methods. Appropriate methods may vary between projects, but could range from the traditional feedback forms at the checkout, to providing a customer-specific database login to allow feedback through the mobile app.
INSTITUTIONAL PROJECTS Stakeholders: Methods:
The range of stakeholders increases in institutional projects, since it will include members of the public, as users (including parents, in the case of schools) and for public projects may even include some government departments (such as key members of the ministry of education, when assessing schools). Methods can follow those used in commercial retail buildings, and can take advantage of existing platforms, which most institutional projects will already have, such as parent-teacher conferences and town hall meetings.
URBAN/MASTER PLANNING PROJECTS Stakeholders: Methods:
The largest and most engaged range of stakeholders can be found in urban-scale projects, as these will involve community members and members of government at the municipal and potentially state or federal levels depending on the scale of the project. A wide variety of methods will need to be used for this size of project, in order to ensure that all members of the community are given the opportunity to provide input. Specific outreach programs must be run and feedback must be actively sought, not just enabled.
HOW MUCH EARTH CAN WE RESTORE?
For too long, we have relied on doing less harm, instead of striving to do good. We hope that through using CURE, people can begin to see the build environment as full of possibilities and opportunities, rather than limitations.
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